Jewells of Thought

“There was one time we was set up in after the Cambodian invasion we came back and stood down for 60 days-paned up vehicles and everything. Oh… before that the 60 days I had to go to Cam Rhon Bay, the convalescence center in Vietnam with a hotel on the beach and that was like a resort. They treated me for malaria and I was in the hospital for about 6 weeks so they could treat me with quinine pills which-very bitter tasting pills.”

“We went out on what we call water positions out beating the bust looking for the enemy and set up NDP’s which is called night defensive positions. We did wagon wheel formations like the old wagon trains did we’d get in a tight circle right before dark then we’d set our booby traps out in front of the vehicles and stuff flares. I was sitting up on top of my APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) and it was uh it was just after dark probably around 10:00 and a shot rang out. Everybody opened up the whole NDP opened up boom, boom, boom, boom, boom then I jumped off the APC and back inside my position to be a gunner and got my .50 caliber shot up some rounds. Then somebody hollered ceasefire, ceasefire they didn’t know why we’re coming at then you know and found out it was friendly troops. They were coming in off of a patrol and they surprised us and uh but how I got shot that night I don’t know. When I think I got shot when I was on top of the vehicle.”

“They med-evacd me out by APC and took me to Battalion Headquarters and gave me a shot and they put me in a bunker. So the next morning the squadron commanders helicopter flew me back to Saigon to the hospital to be operated on and I waited for several hours in the waiting room or staging room or whatever they want to call it triage. I think I waited for almost 3 hours before they put me into surgery and when I woke up from surgery they had me laying on my stomach in my bed. The bay there had a lot of men pacing and they had me laying on my stomach and I was going to roll over and the nurse said no you can’t roll over; said your leg is cut-opened up. I said what?”

Suffice it to say his leg had some complications. After 3 days after that first surgery they had to do a second one. Unfortunately, therapy came too soon and there was a trip that constituted a fall. He could hear the stitches rip the size of 4 silver dollars. He told me that “when they keep you in the hospital for more than 29 days they are supposed to send you back to Japan and then back to the states. Well on my 29th day there they were walking there and on my 29th day I overheard the doctor talking to the nurses why is that guy still here he’s supposed to be in Japan and she said I don’t know. I could hear them talking you know whispering and stuff. So then a few hours later they came to me and said well we’re releasing you to go back to your unit. I said like this, an open wound out in the jungles and she said yeah.”

“By the way I left out the x-rated sorry”, was his comment to me about his reaction to the nurses statement.